This week’s highlighted question for Kwame Anthony Appiah, the NYU philosophy prof who serves as the New York Times’ Magazine’s first real ethicist to take on the role of “The Ethicist” in its long-running advice column, had me pausing to see if I could guess his response. I was wrong: maybe you can do better. Then try to guess mine.
Here’s the question:
“I worked part time for my granduncle’s business when I was 13 and 14. There were many times when we were alone, and he sexually abused me. I never raised it with my parents in those early years; I doubted I would be believed, and my granduncle was a ‘‘kind old man’’ who was very generous to my financially strained family.
In my late 20s, while in therapy, I began to realize the impact those experiences had on me. I told my husband and my parents what happened all those years ago. I received the essential support I needed from my father and my husband. But my relationship with my mother became fraught. When I shared the events with her, she told me that the same man sexually abused her when she was a teenager and that she never told anyone. At first, we were angry about the impact on both of us, but then I became angry at her for not protecting me. How could she have possibly allowed her teenage daughter to regularly be alone with this man? She said that because he was an old man when I worked for him, she didn’t think he would still do the same things. She also asked that I not share this information with my father, fearing that he would blame her for not protecting me.
Knowing that the truth might destroy their marriage, I have remained silent about my mother’s experience and have kept it a secret at her request. I encouraged my mother to attend counseling to address the issue, but she has never done so. Nor has she told my dad. I’ve lost a lot of respect for her over this; her decision seems a selfish one.
I am now in my 50s, my parents are in their 80s and the secret is still buried. My dad continues to ask why I don’t spend more time with my mother; it clearly bothers him. I wonder if it is time to share the secret with him. Is unburdening myself of this secret worth causing disruption and sadness at this late stage of my dad’s life and my parents’ 60-year marriage?“
OK, thinking music time!
Time’s up! Do you have your answers? What did The Ethicist say, and what was my (instant) response?
First I’ll give you my answer, which I think is pretty obvious. “Is unburdening myself of this secret worth causing disruption and sadness at this late stage of my dad’s life and my parents’ 60-year marriage?” Of course not! The only reason to do this is pure revenge against the mother. It would cause harm, how much is unknown, to her parents’ relationship at a time in life when relationships are especially important (as I am discovering daily as I try to build a new life without Grace). If the writer’s relationship with her father is being strained by his resentment over the daughter avoiding her mother, the obvious course is for the daughter to tell her father, “Ask Mom about it.” (This is the same answer Ric Blaine gives when underground Nazi-fighter Victor Laszlo asks him why Ric won’t let him and his wife have the letters of transit that will allow them to escape the Nazis and continue his work: “Ask your wife.” Ric is enough of a gentleman not to want to wreck a marriage by “kissing and telling,” but he points Laszlo to the source who can enlighten him, if she chooses.
The Ethicist weenies out, concluding, “You’ll have to decide, in the end, whether revealing the truth will help heal your injuries or deepen them.” Wrong. The Ethicist thinks it is ethical to risk crushing two people, her parents, to maybe make herself feel better? Terrible answer.
Ethics Alarms 
My vote: The truth must out. Better late than never. Light needs to be shone on what has been visited upon the daughter through no fault of her own. She deserves an apology. You’re never too old to be a responsible adult and do the right thing, particularly for your children. Stop tippytoeing around the parents’ marriage. It’s on a hideous foundation anyway.
Where do I go to get my get out of jail free gold card because I’ve just this week turned 73 and have been married for 49 years?
Well, you beat me: I only made it to 43 before Grace left us. Congratulations. Those of us who keep our lifetime commitment are increasingly rare.
On the substantive issue, as I have opined her before, revealing secrets and devastating truths to know real purpose other tahn doing it is not intrinsically ethical, in my calculation. Absolutism isn’t in play; utilitarianism and The Golden Rule are.
It’s the “to no real purpose” part where we part ways. Leaving the daughter without anyone acknowledging she was toss to the wolves is unspeakable cruel. That needs to be rectified for her benefit. That’s a real purpose.
I have to side with Jack on this one. I do see your point about there potentially being “real purpose” for the daughter, but I think the risks far outweigh any benefit at this point. The monster is gone and can no longer hurt others. Considering the devastation this could bring to the entire family at this point in the parents’ lives, “acknowledging” how the daughter was treated is not enough in my opinion. She has gone to therapy and can get said acknowledgement from her therapist or her husband. To destroy her parents’ marriage feels like nothing more than revenge at this point.
I’d pose a follow-up question: suppose the mother passes away. Is there reason to tell the father? I think my answer is the same.
Mine too!
I have to agree with Old Bill here. A victim has the right to discuss the ways in which she was victimized. And while her mother was a victim of this same man, she was also a perpetrator in allowing her child to be victimized. The child, even though she is now an adult, has the right to tell her father about this, and protecting her parents’ relationship shouldn’t be her responsibility.
Ethics 101: a right to do something does not mean it is right to do something.
There’s nothing more essential and rudimentary to being a parent than protecting your children from sexual abuse, particularly by trusted individuals, particularly relatives. There is no way in which children are more exposed and helpless. Why should that fifty-year-old woman have to live another day wondering why her parents allowed that to happen to her? Therapy is helpful but it’s never going to provide her what she needs to hear. Childhood abuse literally stunts the development of an abused child’s nervous system. This woman has probably been living life as if she were a sailboat without a keel and rudder. All the adults involved need to be confronted with the effects of their malfeasance. And frankly, it would probably do the similarly abused mother some good as well to have it out in the open. The father would have the chance to be understanding and step up and be a man. You can’t be forgiven if you haven’t confessed. And yes, I’m an absolutist on child sexual abuse. If you know to look for it, and you look for it, it’s everywhere, and it’s the worst.
I agree it could do the mother good to “have it out in the open”, but (IMO) that is not the daughter’s responsibility or her decision.
I agree wholeheartedly with your statement about child abuse; it is “the worst”; I’m not sure about it being “everywhere”. I hope you are wrong about that, but sadly you are probably are not.
As a father, I am curious about what you mean when you say the father can “step up and be a man”. This is not in any way intended to be a malicious question; I genuinely wonder what the expectations are here…
If informed, the father can tell the wife she screwed up by not protecting the daughter, but he can tell her he understands she, the mother, was basically rendered incapable of better handling the situation herself as a result of the abuse she herself suffered. He could feel sorry for both of the women, show them that, sympathize with them and help them heal. That’s what they both need from him: empathy and understanding.
I don’t disagree, but how does a 50-year-old abuse victim accomplish anything but pay-back by destroying her father’s trust in her mother when they are in their dotage? She know why her mother betrayed her: her mother said (idiotically) that she didn’t think the uncle was still molesting girls. Talk about the Barn Door principle: this woman wants to shut the bar door after the horse has been gone for decades.
The passage of how ever many years makes no difference. To the daughter, it doubtless feels like it happened earlier today.
Yeah, but it didn’t. And it’s not her father’s fault that she waited too long.
[comment in response to Jack below] “It was a long time ago,” and “It’s time you got over it,” don’t do a bit of good.
What is not mentioned in the letter to the ethicist is; did her mother apologize to her? It all hinges on that.
The mother was, and undoubtedly still is, traumatized by both her own and her daughters experience. If the mother apologized at the time, I am 100% on the side of not making it a family issue; although it would still be worth sitting down with mum to try and get past the anger. If the mother didn’t actually apologize (category 1!), and :”because he was an old man when I worked for him, she didn’t think he would still do the same things” sounds like a cop out to me; then she needs to have a heart-to-heart with the mother. With the mother, not a family showdown.
The related issue is; perhaps – hell, no perhaps about it – we all need to realize that everyone else on the planet is just as frail and fallible as we are and cut them a little slack when they fail. It doesn’t negate the need for genuine apology, but it does necessitate accepting one when given.
Great comment.
I, perhaps mistakenly, assumed the mother was evasive with and not empathetic toward the daughter when the daughter confronted the mother.
Thanks OB.
I assumed the mother was empathetic due to the: ” At first, we were angry about the impact on both of us,” statement. That doesn’t mean the mother apologized for her part in the crime, and that’s why it’s up in the air on that point as far as I’m concerned.